


War Paint

by OdinAyelia



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Past, Tyrrda Brightaxe - Freeform, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:38:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6171292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OdinAyelia/pseuds/OdinAyelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellana Lavellan is a Dalish elf raised by the Avvar clan who killed her family. When Tyrrda Brightaxe begins gathering banners for her war against Thelm the Golden, Ellana's only wish is to prove herself before the Avvar gods. After sneaking in to the war camp at Skyhold, Tyrrda takes Ellana on as part of the army upon the advice of one of her advisers, the scholarly elf Solas.</p><p>This is my imagining of the Tale of Tyrrda Brightaxe from the point of view of a Dalish elf who yearns to find her place in the world, and ends up finding the Dread Wolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Place to Call Home

I covered my _vallaslin_ with war paint, dark blue angled lines and dots to hide what I was by birth, a Dalish elf stolen from my people and raised by the warriors who killed my kin. Flames flickered as I looked myself over in the river. I looked _Avvar_ , a shieldmaiden, warrioress. I would do my clan proud and bring honor to the gods.

The winds of the Frostbacks had been whispering war for moons, their tongues telling tales of warriors gathering in the east, under the banner of Tyrrda Brightaxe, to wage against the golden king Thelm. I cared little for their quarrel; I wanted only the chance to fight, to prove myself as worthy.

“We don’t have to do this,” a voice murmured to my right. I glanced over to my clan-brother Gunnir, who was roasting fennec over the fire. He’d painted over half his face, his dark hair braided intricately through the middle and shaved close on the sides. He was brutish where I was slender, hard where I was soft, and though we were not blood, he had grown to be my best friend.

“I thought you wanted to fight,” I replied simply, adding the finishing touches to my face and letting my pale hair out from its binding. I had braided my bangs like a crown, but left the rest flowing. My hair was finer than the shemlens’, and could go longer without washing or braiding.

“So badly you wish to prove yourself to Hakkon,” was all he said, staring stoically at his kill.

“And you do not? Is that not your right, as Child under the Sky?” I asked, mocking him. Most of my life I had grown up as unworthy. I was not Child under the Sky. I was not favored by the gods. I couldn’t lay claim to my Dalish history, either. I was truly an orphan, with no history, no ancestry.

“We do not need to join Tyrdda Brightaxe to prove ourselves,” he replied. He tossed a bit of meat to me.

I knew he was right, but it didn’t matter. As soon as I’d heard of the war growing, I knew I needed to be a part of it. I needed to _fit_ somewhere, like a puzzle piece flung to the sea finally returned.

“Perhaps not you,” I said. I strapped my leather and furs around me, and grabbed my stave from the riverbank. Drums pounded from the mountains before us; tonight they would be feasting before setting off to the lowlands. “It’s time,” I half whispered, but I knew Gunnir heard me. He placed his quiver and bow over his back and stamped out our tiny fire.

“Are you ready, Ellana Lavellan, Child of the Forest?” he asked.

I kept my gaze on the fortress ahead, on my future, on my honor. “I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life.”

***

Our first obstacle was getting around the guards. We knew if we presented ourselves as Avvar without a banner we would likely be killed on the spot, assumed to be spies from Thelm’s camp. Guards usually gave little worry as to what to do with intruders. We had no nomination to be part of Tyrrda’s army; our own clan of Wolfbrook had opted to stay neutral, which was as close to traitorous as could be in the eyes of the Avvar.

Would we have to kill the guards? Bribe them? Climb over the walls? We spoke of all three, readying ourselves for anything.

But as luck would have it, we would have to do none of these things. As we rounded the corner, crouched down, sneaking quietly, all that greeted us at the gates were the loud snores of one guard, his war paint smeared, a horn of mead hanging from his hand precariously.

“And a drunken fool for a guard,” Gunnir scoffed.

I stuck my tongue out at him playfully. “Never let your guard down,” I cited.

It would have been easy enough to just sneak in past the guard, but that was not the Wolfbrook style. After ensuring he was quite asleep, I spotted a water bucket near a tied-up horse, the edges frothy and green from grass spit. I placed the bucket on a ledge above the guard’s head, using Spirit magic to create a tie that would cause the bucket to spill over his head as soon as he stood up.

Snickering, we entered the great hold in the mountains: Skyhold, newly discovered by Tyrrda Brightaxe as the base of her people.

I stood back in awe for a moment as we entered. Something about the place spoke to me, deep inside, as if a small tingle were zipping through my body.

Gurrin looked at me quizzically. “You all right?” he asked.

I shook myself from my thoughts and nodded, pushing forward. The hold was deep in celebration, a last party of sorts before the march began. Drums and voices rang out, fires blazed, and meat sizzled on spits.

We made our way through the courtyard, through various camps of soldiers and mages, rogues and warriors. Each camp was a different clan; some I recognized, others I didn’t. I felt a _pang_ in my chest as I wished clan Wolfbrook had decided to pledge, how happy I would be if the rest of my family were here. Gunnir seemed to sense my emotions, and patted me hard on the back.

“Mother would have pledged, if Father wasn’t sick, you know that, sister,” he said.

“I know,” I replied with a grim smile. They would be angry enough knowing I had stolen the clan-heir to bring him to war without their knowledge.

“What’s the plan, now?”

I looked around, spotting an empty corner in the back. “We should set up camp over there, and just try to blend in,” I suggested.

Gunnir looked at me pointedly. “Don’t you think it would be wiser to announce ourselves as pledges?”

“And when they question where we are from, or notice the length of my ears, brother, do you think they will want to hear us, or rather sacrifice us to the mountain?” I countered.

“They’ll figure it out eventually,” he muttered to himself, but I wasn’t willing to listen. I hiked to the empty corner and began unloading my pack. We could worry about repercussions after we had landed many kills for Tyrrda Brightaxe. Surely she wouldn’t send away or sacrifice valuable assets to her army.

There were two camps near us. One was a rowdy clan from the bottom of the mountain singing songs and painting each other’s faces. The other was a simple tent, with a studiously quiet elf sitting at a table, scribbling on parchment. He was tall and lean, though his muscles were toned, and though he had elvish ears, his face carried no _vallaslin_.

My dread over being discovered was matched equally by my curiosity over him. I hadn’t come across an elf since clan Wolfbrook had taken me, and had never seen an elf who was not…Dalish.

As though he could hear my very thoughts, he looked over then, his gray eyes piercing mine. I could feel his gaze thrumming through my body.

“ _Andaran atish’an_ ,” he said, bowing his head. On his lips a little smile played.

“ _Hahren_ ,” I responded, using the little Elven I remembered.

I rushed back to setting up camp while Gunnir raised an eyebrow at me. I glared back, and he shirked away to start a fire.

But we would not be allowed into the hold so easily.

At the end of a particularly rowdy song by our neighbors, two brutish guards showed up at our camp, accompanied by the gate guard, whose hair and face was now drenched with dirty water. I struggled not to giggle as he glared at us.

“It must have been them. I would remember a _knife-ear_ if we had one. They must’ve put a spell on me to make me fall asleep,” he sputtered, covering his arse. I looked over to our Elven neighbor, whose eyebrows were raised in apparent curiosity over what was happening.

“Explain yourselves,” one of the dry guards growled.

I stayed Gunnir with my hand. I got us into this, and I would do my best to get us through. “We are of Clan Wolfbrook, and wish to pledge ourselves to battle for Tyrrda Brightaxe,” I announced.

All around us, the crowd hushed to an eerie silence. All eyes were on us.

“We have no sponsorship from Clan Wolfbrook, which can only make you imposters from Thelm’s army. What kind of Avvar clan has a Dalish pledge? Come with us,” he said gruffly, grabbing me by the arm. “We have only one way of dealing with imposters here.”

My heart pounded in my chest and I looked frantically for Gunnir, who was struggling against the burly guard. Stupid, fool head! All I’d wanted was to prove myself, and all I’d gotten was our heads on pikes.

“If I may,” a smooth voice cut in, and I realized it was our Elven neighbor. “But I believe Tyrrda would prefer to judge these two herself,” he said.

The men seemed to listen to him, albeit begrudgingly. “Fine, then, bring them straight to Tyrrda Brightaxe, so she may execute them,” the guard announced to the cheers of the crowd.

I caught the gaze of the elf as I was hauled off to be judged, and I wondered if he stared back at me if he knew what he had just done had, in fact, saved my life.


	2. Stargazer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elanna and Gunnir sneak into the camp, and end up doing a Godstrial to fight for their places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Avvar people remind me of a mix of Vikings and Sami, so I've tried to create a bit of a vicious culture that places decisions in the hands of the gods. Here we meet a few more characters who are a part of the main war party.

Not for the first time, I wished my clan had lopped off my ears when they took me in. At least then I could cover my skin with paint and perhaps pass for a shemlen. Perhaps.

As it was, my damned ears had gotten me and Gunnir a place before the Avvar Mother, Tyrrda Bright-axe, and all of her court. The entire army had gathered into the hall of Skyhold, packed it full to witness their leader execute the alleged intruders. Of course, they didn’t think we were alleged, but with this chance to prove ourselves I meant to save my life, and Gunnir’s. What payment would it be to the people who raised me to have their only son murdered?

The guards had bound our hands with magic _and_ rope, which scraped and burned my skin, and tossed us in front of the Avvar Mother like caught rams.

I looked up from the ground to see two wooden throne chairs before us. In one sat Tyrdda, a stark vision with ruddy skin, black and white face paint, and raven hair layered in intricate braids. She was at once beautiful and terrifying, and her gaze upon me was lined with curiosity. Beside her sat, to my surprise, a beautiful, bare-faced Elven woman. The second bare-faced elf I had seen in the span of a few hours. She wore no battle decoration save for paint around her eyes, and leaned almost lazily into her chair.

Flanking the Avvar Mother were her advisors, a host of burly guards and fierce-looking mages, and of course, the man who had insisted the guards bring us here for a formal hearing. His eyes didn’t leave me as I kneeled.

The crowd bustled, and then all fell silent as Tyrrda rose.

“Child of the Forest, Child under the Sky, why have you entered my hold? Are you spies sent from Thelm?” she asked, followed by booing and hissing from the crowd.

I struggled to stand, pushing through my bindings. “We are sorry for disturbing you, Avvar Mother. We are from Clan Wolfbrook, though they are unaware of our journey. We wish to fight for you in this war,” I said.

She regarded us for a moment, then looked to Gunnir. “And you, Child under the Sky, what have you to say? How did you come to travel with a Child of the Forest?”

Gunnir looked at me, then cleared his throat. “Elanna was raised by my family after we raided her Dalish tribe. She has been raised by our gods, and serves our gods. She is as a sister to me. We wish to prove ourselves to Hakkon,” he announced, and I smiled inwardly, thanking him silently.

Tyrrda stood up, then, and walked toward us. She was tall and foreboding, larger than most men, but still graceful as an August ram. “I believe you, Child under the Sky, and yet you have provided me with a difficult situation. How can our collective clan trust you if you do not have a proper pledge?” she asked aloud, pacing around us.

I looked around, hoping someone would pledge for us, but the looks on everyone’s faces were sneers of disgust…at me. No one would trust a Dalish.

“I’ll speak for them,” a smooth voice announced, and immediately I knew it was the mysterious elf. All eyes turned to him, including Tyrrda, as he stood with his chest raised and his eyes twinkling. “I would be quite interested in studying the effects an Avvar upbringing has had on a Dalish.”

“So you would have her as a pet?” Tyrrda asked, lips curled in an entertained smile.

“Not a pet, but perhaps a subject. I would imagine both are fierce warriors, by the look of them. Do you not think they will be of use to your army?” he replied, raising a brow.

This comment incensed the crowd, and they began to rally and shout.

“Godstrial! Godstrial! Godstrial!”

Gunnir grabbed my hand as well as he could through his bindings. A Godstrial could be anything, from a fight to the death to a poetry-reciting competition. I hoped it would be the latter.

Tyrdda turned to face her people. “I hear a call for a Godstrial!” she called out to raucous cheers. “Very well, then. The two intruders will complete the Test of the Lady against our finest clan-brothers and clan-sisters. If they win, the gods will have deemed them worthy to fight with us. If not, they will be exiled back to their clan,” she said.

I couldn’t help but smile. The Test of the Lady was my best trial; I held the record back home. Gunnir, on the other hand, was strong but not agile. I could only hope he would excel against whoever we were matched against.

The Test was simple. We were given a stone wall which we had to climb without aid. The first to the top was the winner. If one contestant had an advantage, they were handicapped with a bag of stones on their backs. I was looked over as being small and weak, while one of the clans-brothers was given a bag of five stones for his obvious strength.

We were unbound, and lined up before the rock wall with the entirety of Skyhold watching us, two at a time. Gunnir was up first, matched against a scarred and burly clans-brother. He looked at me and met my eyes with a sharp glare. I would have much to make up to my brother for this, but I prayed to the gods he excelled.

It was the elf woman, Tyrrda’s lover, who acted as Tester, a stand-in for the Lady of the Skies. She was swathed by a delicate dress that wrapped around her curves, and Tyrrda’s eyes would see nothing but her. Her name was Asha, we had learned, which I found odd as the Elven word _asha_ simply meant “woman.”

The Test began, and Gunnir launched forward, quickly scaling the cliff like he had been born doing it. I beamed at him proudly as he looked down at the cheering crowd. The gods had deemed him worthy, and so the rest of the Avvar accepted him.

Now it was my turn. I took my place at the starting line, my opponent beside me, large and brawny with the stink of old soup. He sneered at me, baring a grin with missing teeth. “I’ve never seen a _knife-ear_ climb a wall before,” he taunted.

I gritted my teeth. He would be in for a surprise.

Asha looked at us both, then nodded for us to begin. I leapt forward, ready to sprint for the walls, when I felt my legs fall from under me and I hit the ground with a _thud_. My opponent had grabbed my legs, throwing me back so he could gain a lead. My face covered by dirt, I spit on the ground and rushed forward again. I wouldn’t let him beat me. I _couldn’t_ let him beat me.

And I could also play dirty.

As he crept toward the wall, I rushed to meet him. He was stronger, but I was faster. He had also left his bootstraps slightly untied. This was my chance. I lunged for his feet, grabbing the leather straps and quickly knotting his boots together. I finished by giving him a good knee-kick to the head before zipping past. In no time I had sprung up the wall while he was forced to hang back, his boots stuck together.

As I met Gunnir at the top of the wall, he put his hand against the small of my back, the barest of a smile on his face, though it might have been as much as I`d ever seen Gunnir smile. “Who’s that elf trickster god you talk about?” he murmured.

“Fen’Harel,” I replied.

“I think you invoked him tonight.”

Unlike the cheers from when Gunnir had won, my success only achieved a confused silence.

Tyrrda circled the man below, who was still struggling with his boots, and gave him a swift kick to get out of the way. She turned to the crowd. “The Lady has spoken. Please join me in welcoming our two newest recruits. Please, come back down,” she said, turning to us.

We scaled down the wall, and at Gunnir’s lead we knelt before her. She pressed her hand on each of our backs, then summoned her Augur, who held a pot of red paint.

“As the Lady is my witness, I hereby welcome you to my clan,” she said loudly, swiping two fingers into the pot of paint and smearing a diagonal line across each of our faces. When she touched my face, she leaned in to whisper in my ear. “You have Solas to thank for your life, Child of the Forest. I welcome you to our table to feast.”

I looked through the crowd to find the elf who had spoken up for me. Solas, she had called him. _Pride_ , I thought. What a strange name for someone so soft-spoken and studious. He smirked at me one last time, then disappeared into the disbursing crowd.

***

We were free people now, initiated members of Tyrrda Bright-axe’s great army, and on our first night we were seated with the very leaders of the war council. There was Solas, whose every gaze sent a strange shiver down my spine, Asha, the Augur White Fang, whose face was painted like that of a skull, a stout dwarf with a thick, bushy beard, and Tyrrda herself.

Gunnir, though grateful for his life, refused to acknowledge that I’d done something well, and insisted my elven gods helped me through.

We feasted on seasoned meat and drank mead at a table set up in a private courtyard outside rather than within the hold. “We will spend our last night beneath the stars, not encased in stone,” Tyrrda explained, giving the dwarf, Hendir, an apologetic look.

“Don’t bother trying not to offend me. I’ll take the stars over stone any day,” he replied gruffly, holding his ram’s leg up to the stars. “Mountain air is so much fresher than my brothers’ farts in a sealed room,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows.

I quickly learned the group was not so fierce or serious as I had expected, that they were not all-seeing, all-knowing demi-gods. Tyrrda was a fierce warrior who had almost been swayed by Thelm the Golden into marriage, but had refused and decided to stay with Asha, her lover, and free the people of the Frostbacks from Thelm’s army. Asha was a brilliant mage herself, though not prone to much speech. She spent most of her time observing others while offering the occasional insight to a war plan. Magic circled around her, a power I had never felt before.

Then there was Solas. Though he had opted to camp with the rest of the clans, he was one of Tyrrda’s principal advisors, and had found Skyhold for her to use as her base. He was a…strange fellow. He was quiet and observant, his eyes constantly searching the expressions of the other members, seemingly memorizing their words and trying to discover their intentions.

After we feasted, attention turned to us, and the stares of every warlord and lady around the table made my cheeks flush. Gunnir patted my leg gingerly. He’d had quite a few mugs of mead and a smile I wasn’t used to had permanently crept onto his lips.

“Let’s hear more about our new recruits, shall we?” Tyrrda asked.

Usually I was the one who did most of the talking, but Gunnir surprised me by speaking up. “Clan Wolfbrook would have sent proper pledges, Lady, but my father is very sick, soon to return to the Sky, some say. Had I been in charge, I would have sent all our men to lend their blades!” he announced.

Tyrrda’s lips curled into a small smile, and out of the corer of my eye I noticed Solas eyeing me knowingly, amused.

“That is good to know, Gunnir. We will send word to your parents to give thanks to your pledge in their honor,” Tyrrda said.

“I want to know more about the little Dalish,” Asha said, leaning forward in her chair. Her position was almost feline, predatory and seductive at the same time.

“Elanna is no Dalish. She may have been born a _knife-ear_ , but she was raised an Avvar through and through. She’s as fierce as any warrior I have ever known,” Gunnir stated loudly and proudly, much to my dismay.

My heart fluttered a bit and my eyes widened at his words. I smacked his arm before bowing my head in embarrassment. “Maybe not the right words,” I grunted, but he was beyond listening capacity.

“Tell me more, Wolfbrook,” Asha taunted, and though our hold-animal was wolf, I felt we were sheep surrounded by black wolves in war paint, each licking their lips to get a taste of us.

“When we were little, our clan came across some travelling Dalish in our area. We-we knew they would never surrender, and that they had a powerful mage,” Gunnir said, his words slurring together, his hands shaping the story around him. Gods, he’d had too much to drink.

He kept going, “We knew there was only one way to do it, you know, to win against them, so in the middle of the night some of the men of our clan snuck in and slit everyone’s throats.” His voice was filled with a glee I’d never seen before, and for the first time since I was a child, I remembered how cruel my first nights with Clan Wolfbrook were, how frightened I was, how much despair I felt knowing my entire family was dead.

“Perhaps that is enough,” Tyrrda began, but Gunnir continued.

“It wasn’t until the next day we found Elanna hiding amongst the charred ruins of the camp. She was all sooty, do you remember that? Sooty and crying, but strong overall. You fought our father with all your strength, even gave him a scar on his face. My parents decided to keep her, because the gods had spared her.”

I’d had enough. Flashbacks of that night filled my mind, the screams of my parents and sisters, the lick of hot flames, finding a place to hide until it was all over, the large, painted man who came to claim me. I never really had a choice.

“My apologies,” I whispered, then stood up, running out of the courtyard, away from Gunnir, away from the toothy grins of everyone who stared at me.

I didn’t stop running until I’d reached a patch of trees, a small bit of forest within the mountains, a small bit of home in this land.

 

And I stared at the stars until my skin was cold and my breath made wisps in the night.

 

“ _Da’len_ ,” a smooth voice spoke. I was too cold to react, or attempt to protect myself.

“What do you want?” I whispered.

Solas walked up to me then, holding a thick fur. I didn’t react as he draped it over my freezing body, then lit a fire by my feet. I was lying on the ground, like I used to do as a child.

“I don’t think your brother meant to hurt you as he did,” he said, “the Avvar people often have difficulty with…subtlety,” he said, sitting down beside me. Warmth radiated from the fire, and my teeth chattered.

“He’s not really my brother,” I replied, “it was silly for me to think I would ever really fit in.”

“Perhaps not by blood, but it is not our blood which makes us who we are. It is our actions, what we choose to do with our lives, who we choose to help. It seems to me you have chosen to live nobly, and that choice is what sets you apart,” he said.

I sighed, refusing to look at him, though the heat was becoming welcome, preferable to the cold I’d wanted to permeate my body.

“But I will always be the _little Dalish_ ; I will never be a Child under the Sky.”

“So? You were not born Child under the Sky. You were born as you are, and nothing will change that. Reflecting on the shape you wish your ears were will not bring you peace, _Da’len_. And you have company. Asha may not be Dalish, but she is an elf surrounded by Avvar, just like you,” he said.

I turned over, grasping the fur around myself, and as I reached his gaze I noticed he wasn’t just sitting beside me, but lying beside me, his arms wrapped around the back of his neck, looking up at the same stars.

“What about you?” I asked.

He looked confused for a moment, then let out a knowing smile. “Ah, yes. I am of The People, though I do not let that define me. What matters is what I do, and I choose to fight with Tyrrda Bright-axe and restore some semblance of peace to this land.”

Everything he said was right, I knew that. I’d been fighting my entire life to prove myself to someone, to the gods, to find a place to call home.

And I knew it wouldn’t be easy, even if I wished otherwise.

“Will you stay with me, here, under the stars?” I asked after a moment of silence. I barely knew this man, but I felt some kind of solace in him.

He didn’t speak, just nodded while I ushered him under the furs, his body close to mine, heating me back up.

I knew, without saying anything, that he was hurting, too, that he was alone and scared as much as he didn’t want to admit it.

I fell asleep wrapped up in him, knowing this comfort was temporary, and that tomorrow I would once again be fighting for myself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm super looking forward to working on this series and exploring these characters. ^^


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